Anti-Racism Resources: Read

In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.

Law professor and mindfulness practitioner Rhonda Magee shows that the work of racial justice begins with ourselves. The practice of mindfulness--paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations in an open, nonjudgmental way--increases our emotional resilience, giving us the space to become less reactive and to choose how we respond to injustice. Incorporating mindfulness exercises, research, and Magee's hard-won insights, The Inner Work of Racial Justice offers a road map to a more peaceful world.

In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas--from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilites--that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences.

In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.

The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze. My Grandmother’s Hands is a call to action for Americans to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body. Author Resmaa Menakem introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.

Keepin' It Real presents a wide-ranging group of essays that take on key aspects of the current landscape surrounding racial issues in America, including the place of the Obamas, the rise of White nationalism, Donald Trump, Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, and much more.

In this collection of essays, interviews, and speeches, the renowned activist examines today's issues--from Black Lives Matter to prison abolition and more.

Selected and edited by the award winning American playwright Reginald Edmund, who produced Black Lives, Black Words across the US, which premiered in Chicago, July 2015. Over sixty Black writers from the UK, USA, and Canada have each written a short play to address Black issues today.

In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. She posted a piece on her blog, entitled: 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race'. Her words hit a nerve. Galvanised by this clear hunger for open discussion, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism.

When George Yancy penned a New York Times op-ed entitled "Dear White America," he knew his article would be controversial. The resulting blowback played out in the national media, with critics attacking Yancy in every form possible. In Backlash, Yancy expands upon the original article and chronicles the ensuing controversy as he seeks to understand what it was about the op-ed that created so much rage among so many white readers.

In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight white supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

"A passionate, incisive critique of the many ways in which women and girls of color are systematically erased or marginalized in discussions of police violence." --Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

This book explains how race and class intersect in ways that uniquely disadvantage racial minorities.

The book shows that more than a half century after the first civil rights legislation, the dismal fact of mass incarceration inflicts widespread and enduring damage by undermining the fair allocation of public resources and political representation, by depriving the children of inmates of their parents' economic and emotional participation, and, ultimately, by concealing African American disadvantage from public view.

Blacks are much more likely than whites to be stopped by the police, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned, and are much less likely to have confidence in justice system officials, especially the police. In Punishing Race, Michael Tonry demonstrates in lucid, accessible language that these patterns result not from racial differences in crime or drug use but primarily from drug and crime control policies that disproportionately affect black Americans.

The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.

From one of the world's leading voices on white privilege and anti-racism work comes this collection of essays on complexities of privilege and power. Each of the four parts illustrates Peggy McIntosh's practice of combining personal and systemic understandings to focus on power in unusual ways.

In Witnessing Whiteness, Kristopher Norris explores the challenges that lie at the intersection of race, church, and politics in America and argues for a new ethics of responsibility to confront white supremacy.

Knowingly and unknowingly we all grapple with race every day. Understanding White Privilege delves into the complex interplay between race, power, and privilege in both organizations and private life.

COLORLINES is a daily news site where race matters, featuring award-winning in-depth reporting, news analysis, opinion and curation.

If babies, young children, middle schoolers or teens are in your life, this list offers books for talking about race and difference.